A Russian scientist and a Czechoslovakian scientist had spent their lives studying the grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone National Park to study the bears. Finally their request was granted, and they immediately flew to New York and on west to Yellowstone. But after reporting to the ranger station, they were told that it was the grizzly mating season and it was too dangerous to go out and study the animals. They pleaded that this was their only chance, and finally the ranger relented. The Russian and the Czech were given portable phones and told to report in every day.
For several days they called in but then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the camp completely ravaged, with no sign of the missing men. Instinctively, the rangers followed the trail left by a male and a female bear. The rangers found the female bear, and fearing an international incident, decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientists. So they killed the female bear and opened her stomach. Sure enough, they found the remains of the Russian scientist, but not the other.
Just then, one ranger turned to the other and said, "You know what this means, don't you?" "Of course," said the other ranger, "The Czech is in the male." (Note to reader- the congregation groaned!)
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
In 1943, Abraham Maslow published a paper called "A Theory of Motivation." In the paper Maslow sought to understand human motivation. What causes a person to aspire toward the highest level of morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, and objectivity? What causes some people to live barely beyond the level of animals?
Maslow’s theory is that we don’t aspire to our fullest potential until we satisfy our most basic physical needs. According to Maslow, our most basic physical needs include breathing, food, water, sleep, staying warm or cool, and going to the bathroom. I don’t mean to be crass, but have you ever noticed that when you are hungry, thirsty, tired, freezing, orreally, really have to go to the bathroom, little else matters? Let’s not go around sharing any stories or anything, but Maslow was right!
I mean, who can forget the story told in Genesis 25:27-34 when Esau comes in from the fields famished, only to smell the fresh pot of stew his brother Jacob has cooked up? Esau was so hungry thatnothing else in all the world mattered to him! And so for a bowl of stew, Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob. Unthinkable! It wasn’t until later, after he satisfied his hunger, that he realized what he had done.
Or consider the story we find in 1 Samuel 24:1-13. We find the jealous King Saul and his mighty army hunting down David and his men. In the midst of the chase, King Saul, who is wearing long flowing robes, needs to make an emergency pit stop. So he excuses himself and ducks away into a nearby cave. Little does he know, but David and his men are hiding in the back of the cave! Saul was so preoccupied with his need to relieve himself that he didn’t even notice! As King Saul takes his pit stop, David sneaks up and cuts a corner off Saul’s robe. David could have taken his life, but refused.
Jesus spoke to crowds who had tremendous physical needs.
Our physical needs hold powerful sway over lives. It is hard to move beyond our physical needs or even see beyond our immediate physical needs! So appreciate the challenge that Jesus faced. In Matthew 5 he was surrounded by a crowd. Among other things, the crowd was desperately hungry and thirsty. They had tremendous needs. They were distracted. They were preoccupied. They were more interested in what was for lunch than in anything Jesus had to say.
How could Jesus draw them in when mentally, they were standing in line at a buffet across town? But Jesus always had found a way to draw people in. In John 4:32 (NIV) he says, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." I'll bet that got a few people’s attention! "Did he say food?" Later in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25 (NIV) Jesus would say, "Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"
We have to raise our focus beyond our physical needs.
Such is the problem with addictive behaviors like overeating, smoking, drinking, excess sugar intake, caffeine, alcoholism, drugs, and sexual immorality. How quickly and easily our physical needs can become our obsession and the total focus of our lives. And so we have to raise our focus far above our physical needs. What else is there in life? What else satisfies beyond that next breath of air, that next bite of food, that next gulp of water, that next nap, or whatever? I’ll stop there.
In Matthew 5:6 (NIV) Jesus identifies with the crowds' most deepest and most basic needs. But he calls them to something much higher when he says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...." Jesus was just brilliant here! He's saying, "Take all your hunger and thirst and dissatisfaction and aim it at God!
A devoted follower of Socrates came to him and asked what was the best way to acquire knowledge. Socrates responded by leading him to a river and plunging him beneath the surface. The man struggled to free himself, but Socrates kept the man's head submerged. Finally the terrified man was able to break loose and emerge from the water, gasping for air. Socrates then asked him, "When you thought you were drowning, what one thing did you want most of all?" Still gasping for breath, the man exclaimed, "I wanted air!" The philosopher replied, "When you want knowledge as much as you wanted air, then you will get it!" This is how it is with righteousness. (Source: Our Daily Bread)
Jesus told the crowds to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Jesus was telling the crowds to hunger and thirst after righteousness in the same way that people starved of bread and people deprived of water, hunger for food. He told them to hunger after air like a drowning man gasping for his next breath. The saints of old would fast and pray, depriving themselves of food and drink for hours, for days, and even for weeks. They beat their breasts, hoping to desire God before all else. We mock them for their legalistic rituals, but the fact is that their souls hungered and craved after God. Do we hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do we hunger and thirst for the living God?
Diagnosis: Full stomach (satisfied).
Our problem these days is that we are afflicted with a full stomach. In the game of "Operation", aspiring surgeons are tasked with removing a loaf of bread from a patient’s stomach. But in the game of life we're the patients, and we're the satisfied ones! The danger for us is that we have become so satisfied that we no longer hunger for God.
We’ve been to church. We’ve grown up in Sunday school. We’ve sung at church camp. We’ve logged hundreds of pages in our Bible reading plans. We’ve fattened our souls with sermons, lessons, books, devotionals, and Christian radio. How easily we lose that hunger and thirst, that craving, that yearning, that passion to know the living God and to be filled with his righteousness.
In John 4 we find Jesus resting by a well as his disciples run into town to find some food. A Samaritan woman comes out alone to draw some water, and finds Jesus sitting there. She is thirsty and Jesus' disciples are hungry. John 4:7-9 (NIV) says, "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)"
But Jesus quickly takes her beyond the physical and redirects her hunger and thirst. John 4:10-15 (NIV) continues, "Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.' 'Sir,' the woman said, 'you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?' Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.'"
Are we thirsting for water, or for the living water?
Every one of us needs to ask ourselves if we are thirsting for water or for the living water? In Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV) there is this passage where God speaks against his people. He says, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." The passage begs a question. Are we carrying around the same old stale water from yesteryear, or are we seeking the fresh streams of living water from God?
In John 6:27 (NIV) Jesus says, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." In Hebrews 5:12-14 (NIV) the writer says, "In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
There is a good chance that if you have been a Christian for very long, you’ve grown satisfied. Who knows, you may be lethargic. Perhaps nothing arouses your appetite. You're bored. "Another sermon, blah blah blah. Sunday school, Life Groups, that's enough, I’m full!"
The soul needs God the same way the body needs food and water.
We are very in tune with physical hunger, but do we recognize the hunger of our souls? Here’s the truth about hunger. The soul needs God the same way the body needs food. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God. And how great is the satisfaction that comes in not just nourishing the body, but also in nourishing your soul. In the Bible there are three types of righteousness that God wants us to hunger and thirst after.
First, we are to hunger after Christ’s righteousness.
In Matthew 6:25-33 (NIV), Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
In John 6:56 (NIV) Jesus says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him." Pagans try to find satisfaction apart from God. Pagans are always hungry and thirsty, even on Thanksgiving Day! But among Christians there is to be no doubt that Jesus Christ is the bread of life, that Jesus Christ is the living water, and that Jesus Christ can do for our souls what Thanksgiving does for our bodies.
Second, we are to hunger after moral righteousness.
In John 4 Jesus' disciples return with fresh food just as the Samaritan woman races back to town to tell everyone about the living water Jesus offered her. As the disciples urge Jesus to eat, he says to them in John 4:32-34 (NIV), "'I have food to eat that you know nothing about.' Then his disciples said to each other, 'Could someone have brought him food?' 'My food,' said Jesus, 'is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.'"
Last, we are to hunger after social righteousness.
In James 2:15-17 (NIV) James says, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
The righteousness we are to hunger and thirst after touches every dimension of life. It’s an upward hunger for Christ, the living water and bread of life. It’s an inner moral hunger to honor God in every single thing we do. It’s an outward social hunger to love God’s world which is a world starved for Christ.
The blessing- "for they will be filled."
And here is the blessing, the promise in Matthew 5:6 (NIV). "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Psalm 63:1 (NIV) captures the essence of the Christian life. "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you,my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Here is God's promise in Psalm 42. Notice that the psalmist asks for a trickle of water, but God delivers a waterfall!
Psalm 42
For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.
"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng."
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon— from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."
"By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?' My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."
Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Hunger and thirst for righteousness, and you will be blessed.